Paying the Piper
by Scribbler
Summary: [one shot] Post'Future Shock'. Immediatly after the events of the episode, Virgil's future family learn that there are always consequences to messing with bad guys.


Disclaimer ~ Static Shock and all characters therein are the property of KidsWB, Milestone and DC Comics. This story is written for fun, not profit.   
  
A/N ~ I was poking through my unfinished fic folder and found this, and I thought 'hey, I haven't written anything Static Shock in a while', so I dug it out, finished it off and here it is. Please bear in mind that the majority of it was written back in February, and since I live in the UK I haven't actually seen the episode on which it's based. Subsequently, I love TV-Tome. Reviews will be printed, laminated and stuck in my scrapbook, which sits open on my coffee table where I can show it off to impressionable houseguests.   
  
=========  
  
'Paying the Piper' By Scribbler  
  
April 2004  
  
=========  
  
By mortal definition, the universe is a vast, uncharted place. It is a chasm of thought and raw awareness - a constant pool of possibilities. Forces operate within it that humans can barely comprehend, let alone understand - miracles of science and wonder and magic, all rolled in starshine and mystery. The long life of a star, the insistent pull of gravity, the unrefined indefinite that lies behind a black hole - things dealt with in science fiction novels and Hollywood movies. Things that stir the imagination and fire the soul with a desire to learn the wheres and whys and wherefores.  
  
In all that, there is a star known only as 'sun' that shines down on a tiny blue planet. The planet is quite unremarkable, being one of many in its galaxy; and yet, of them all it is this one that manages to support innumerable and diverse biological organisms. Its neighbours house only dust and fable, but here the water, the land, the air - all teem with life both complex and simple, each born of the same basic protein strands.   
  
These protein strands contain the algorithm for existence. A tweak here, a nip there, and something new is produced. A slight mutation in an existing creature, perhaps - or maybe something entirely fresh. A new species. A new creature. A new life. Nature has spent millennia fostering the current status quo, but sometimes... just sometimes... it's given a bit of a jump-start.  
  
The start of all life in the known universe is known as the Big Bang.   
  
The synthetic start of meta-humans also went by this name.  
  
Little words. Gigantic implication.  
  
Frieda wasn't considering the miracle that had spawned her two children right now. Right now, she was desperately trying not to melt into a gooey puddle of panic, whilst simultaneously propping her son up with one arm so he didn't block her view. The other hand was engaged in driving, and the compression belt on the hovercar squealed in protest as she zipped in and out of traffic.   
  
In the backseat, Shelley snuggled against her stuffed leopard - the inappropriately named Stripes. She was still conscious, and looked on with a quiet detachment that was totally at odds with her ten-year-old body. She'd been in bed before they left, and still wore her too-big nightgown and bunny-slippers. The nightie had been a gift last Christmas from her Grandma Goren, whose eyes were going and who often served baked Alaska and plum pudding for breakfast just because she could. As such, it was four sizes too big and pooled around the little girl's feet when she stood up.   
  
Shelley had been a surprise when Frieda was in her late thirties. She still marvelled at the contents of tap water these days that was able to keep fertility abundant for so long, but couldn't fault the results - even if the extra mouth had stretched finances a tad.   
  
A truck driver beeped irritably. Frieda ignored him, instead checking the rear-view mirror to see if they were being followed. She could see nothing but heavy traffic in all directions - sadly normal for municipal Dakota at three in the morning. Rush hour was even worse.   
  
Yet another thing she didn't have time to think about right now.   
  
Virgil had left numbers and contact details for various people around the apartment, should she ever need help and he was unable to give it. He'd also provided her with a brand new Shock Vox.   
  
That had been the first thing the intruders smashed after they broke in, right before they cornered Peter in the kitchen.   
  
_Damn it, Virgil, where are you?_  
  
Not for the first time, she had no idea of the whereabouts of her husband. As a consequence of this, she was making for the only other place she could think of where she and her small family would be safe - Auntie Sharon and Uncle Adam's place over in the wealthier side of town. They had enough security to clamp down on anyone or anything wanting in; and at a push, Adam could always pull his old Rubber Band Man routine and kick their asses right back to wherever it was they came from.   
  
She didn't even know who the men were. They'd just appeared at the apartment, blasted their way in unannounced and proceeded to tear the place apart. After they got to Peter she'd considered contesting them for all of two seconds, before grabbing the children and bolting. Had she been alone she might have demanded to know what they were doing there, but motherhood had mellowed her suicidal-hothead tendencies somewhat.  
  
Evidently, their speciality was demolition, not pursuit, because they still hadn't given chase by the time she started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.   
  
It didn't take a genius to figure out they were there because of Virgil. Frieda Hawkins was a journalist, and though she'd been passed over numerous times as war correspondent, trawling the underbelly of Dakota looking for stories was probably just as dangerous. Nevertheless, more threats on her life came from being married to Static than exposing drug rings and criminal syndicates.   
  
The greeting, "Wife of Static, now you die" had been a bit of a tip-off, too.   
  
Things had never been quite the same after the world found out that unassuming lab technician Virgil Hawkins was the perennial masked crime fighter of Dakota. Granted, it made things easier for her, insofar as she could now tell the truth about why Virgil was absent from family gatherings and suchlike. Kind of difficult to play Dutiful Husband and kick meta-human tail at the same time - although she still maintained he could help around the place more than he did. It certainly wouldn't kill him to vacuum now and then, or set aside time between work and Static to kiss his kids goodnight.   
  
There had been a grand total of three attempts on Frieda's life since the newspapers printed Static's real identity. She'd taken each and every one of them on the chin, claiming she knew what she was getting into when she married him. "No secret stays secret forever", she'd said, sort-of adopting the same phrase as a work mantra afterwards.   
  
Tonight marked the first time the children had been targeted.   
  
She'd pinned Virgil down for a discussion on just this sort of thing only last month. It was what she was good at - getting people to sit and listen to what she had to say, then teasing their own opinions out of them. It was what had ensured she pushed all rivals down the journalistic ladder headfirst. He hadn't wanted to talk about it, initially, but eventually she'd bitten down to the bare bones of the matter and proceeded to chew them raw with him.   
  
The children had exhibited no overt signs of Bang-Babyness, despite the influx of mutated DNA in their systems. However, that wasn't to say that someday they wouldn't show symptoms, or that nobody was interested in finding out more about what made them tick. There were several scientists who had written theses on the matter in the decades since Edwin Alva neglectfully stored canisters of mutagenic formula on a gangland waterfront. Frieda had turned away several requests for samples of blood from Shelley and Peter for study, knowing full well where giving in to that sort of thing would ultimately lead. Nobody was picking her children apart on a lab table.   
  
Had it not been for the explicit declaration that they were there to kill them all, she might have thought the men tonight were after much the same thing. Either way, there was only one course of action she could think of that wouldn't categorically result in her scraping herself off the walls.   
  
Damn it, where was Virgil?   
  
_I'm going to kill him. I'm going to rip off his arms and beat him with them. Then I'm going to take that stupid flying disc of his and shove it up his -_  
  
Peter groaned. He'd slumped sideways when he passed out, blood gushing from a particularly nasty cut on his forehead. Now he pushed himself up, releasing her arm so she could better grip the wheel without blood vacuuming into her wrist.   
  
"Mom?"  
  
"Here, sweetie." She fumbled in the side pocket of her door and produced a wad of musty serviettes, compliments of a past dinner at the Burger Fool Drive Thru. "Press this to your head to staunch the flow before you pass out again."  
  
Peter was nearly fifteen - an introspective child like his sister, but with all the get-up-and-go she lacked. Virgil had once commented that Shelley was a watcher, while Peter was a doer. Shelley liked reading about life, while Peter liked jumping in feet first and living it. Preferably on the edge.  
  
Of course, Frieda had dredged up some of her feminist vigour and argued that Shelley was just more cautious than her brother. Peter exhibited all the traits of his father with regards to forethought and fine planning - i.e. he didn't consider them until after the fact, then pooh-poohed them as unnecessary anyway.   
  
She suspected that was what had happened in the kitchen. Peter had confronted the intruders, one of whom had introduced him to a backhand that split his lip and sent him ricocheting off the counter.   
  
"Did you call Dad, yet?"  
  
"I can't get hold of him."  
  
"Oh. Right. The Shock Vox. How about Auntie Sharon?"  
  
Frieda took a moment to glare at the cell phone sliding around the dashboard. The battery was more deceased than the Joker. She had been using it all day, trying to contact Ritchie to find out Virgil's whereabouts. He hadn't been seen for a few days, which hadn't worried her unduly until his work called and asked why he was off without leave or notice.   
  
Virgil loved his work. He never missed a day, even when he was struck down with the dreaded lurgies and had to have a hankie virtually grafted to his nostrils. When villains attacked he treated them with the same annoyance as a jammed photocopier or sticky keyboard, and tended to put in overtime when superheroics took time from his day.   
  
The belated news that he just plain hadn't turned up had caused no outward change in Frieda, but she was more than a little scared for him.   
  
Both of them knew that each time he stepped out in costume could be the last time they saw each other. Frieda had long since reconciled herself to that fact, but thus far he'd always come home in the end. Sometimes he had a few extra cuts and bruises, sometimes even broken bones, but he always came home.   
  
There was a thrill of panic in her this time - a sense of foreboding that something really bad had befallen her husband. The men at the apartment only compounded the thought.  
  
The hovercar groaned, engine giving out a peculiar squeak. Frieda frowned, trying to ignore it, but when the noise increased she was forced to slow down in an attempt to ease the poor vehicle's woes. No point in blowing themselves up when the bad guys were only too eager to do it for them.  
  
"That doesn't sound good," Shelley said needlessly.   
  
"No," Frieda agreed. "It doesn't."  
  
"Shouldn't we pull over and check it out?" Peter asked. The hovercar's track record for breakdowns would have rivalled the phone book in size and weight. It was not a good idea to tick the poor thing off by pushing it too hard.   
  
However, getting to a safe place fast was the foremost thought in Frieda's brain. If needs be and she ruined the engine then they could take out a loan to buy a replacement car. Superheroics and the low end of professions didn't pay especially well, and both she and Virgil were too proud to accept financial help from family members or friends - hence the banged out old effort they shared and the small apartment they lived in.   
  
Cars could be replaced. People couldn't.  
  
Nonetheless, the noise persisted. By the time they reached the intersection that housed their turnoff it had increased to a high-pitched whine, and when they swerved down a side road that provided a shortcut through the neighbourhood it coughed, spluttered, and then gave up with a buzz. It had died completely.  
  
A frission of panic mixed with adrenaline sang through Frieda's veins, but she made no indication she hadn't been expecting that to happen. A few jerks of the ignition proved the hovercar was well on its way to the giant parking lot in the sky. For a second she considered hitting the steering wheel to vent her frustration, but deemed it counterproductive and busied herself with the children instead.  
  
Conscious that they were possibly in more danger than before, she lost no time in hustling them out of the car and raiding the trunk for blankets to keep warm. The sight of the warning triangle kept beneath made her smirk humourlessly.  
  
"What do we do now?" asked Peter; trying to keep his blanket around his shoulders whilst simultaneously press a serviette against his forehead.   
  
"Now we start walking. Quickly. We're not too far, so it shouldn't take us long."  
  
He glanced around, obviously not liking that idea. Peter was a savvy kid, pubescent but already with enough savoir-faire to keep him alive in a place like Dakota. Frieda often marvelled at how she'd managed to survive her youth with only a smidgen of the stuff. Had she believed in luck, she might have said a substantial serving had been given her at puberty to make up for the flat chest, acne and wonky big toes that ensured she could never wear sandals.   
  
Except that she didn't believe in luck. She believed in common sense, preparation and, above all, believing in oneself. Trite, perhaps, but that sort of thing had kept her alive and in a job for the past she-really-didn't-like-to-think-how-many years.   
  
Shelley tucked Stripes under one arm and pushed her hair from her eyes. Unlike her brother, Shelley's hair held more than a meagre hint of their mother's fiery red. It burnished the dominant black, softening it into something akin to mahogany; soft waves that fell about her face in feathers. When she grew up it would probably be her most striking feature.   
  
"I'm cold."  
  
"I know, honey, so that's why we have to start walking. The exercise will keep us warm."  
  
"I can't walk properly in these slippers."  
  
"I'll carry you, then."   
  
True to her word, Frieda scooped her daughter up into her arms and set off at a brisk trot.   
  
Peter followed, casting a single look back at their deceased transportation. "I wish Dad was here," he muttered, so low that Frieda couldn't be sure he'd meant for her to hear or not.   
  
_You and me both. Virgil, where *are* you?_  
  
"Mommy, are those men going to come find us at Auntie Sharon's?" Remarkably, Shelley didn't sound all that frightened of the mob that had destroyed their home. Such was the consequence of Dakota-living, one might suppose. And having Static for a father, of course.  
  
"No, sweetie, they're not."  
  
"Yeah. And even if they did, Uncle Adam would kick all their butts in a heartbeat. Wham, pow, smack - right Mom?"  
  
How difficult to instil anything approaching pacifist ideals into a family populated by superheroes. At any other time Frieda might have reprimanded Peter for thinking of violence before dialogue, but at the moment she was counting on the violent option to keep them safe. If there was one thing she'd learned, it was that some people only responded to the language of power, and those thugs back at the apartment had all the right characteristics.  
  
They weren't very far from Sharon and Adam's house, which was why she'd even considered walking the last part of the journey. Even so, the shadows seemed longer and darker than she could ever remember. She quickened her pace to a near-run that Peter had trouble keeping up with.   
  
"Hey, Mom, slow down!"  
  
There was something moving in the darkness, she was sure of it. Or was that simply her imagination and anxiety ganging up on her?  
  
They turned right, then left, then right again. Somewhere nearby a cat yowled. Others could be heard scrapping over a choice trashcan morsel.   
  
Imperceptible hairs along the back of Frieda's neck prickled. Her veins hummed, and she tightened her grip on Shelley when they neared the mouth of an alley that led onto a busy street.   
  
The circle of figures moved so fast that Frieda was almost bodily knocked backwards when they leapt in front of her. She took a step back, fumbled for Peter's arm, and turned to run the other way.   
  
More shapes lined the breadth of the alley. Without thinking she drew her son close, holding him to her while Shelley balanced precariously in her arms. Maternal protectiveness surged, creating a ridiculous set to her shoulders that bespoke a challenge for them to try something - anything they wanted. She'd take them all on anyway.  
  
Yet they didn't. They stopped all of three feet away, having herded the little trio against a wall, and seemed to wait for further instruction. The scenario was so bizarre - men obviously quite capable of tearing them apart, waiting like a line of puppy dogs for a bone - that Frieda felt a bubble of hysterical laughter in her gullet.  
  
Grime streaked the back of her jacket when she brushed up against the brickwork. She hadn't had chance to get changed when she got in, and so had performed evening duties bedecked in a rumpled red suit and butter-yellow blouse. Hideous colouring, but the station insisted on it because it showed up better on camera when set against dingy locales. They'd even footed the bill.   
  
She was willing to bet it would be worth less than nothing after this.  
  
There was doubt in her mind that these were the same men from the apartment, although how they had managed to overtake and surround them so fast was a mystery. They each wore cloth masks that covered their faces, but there was one who stood a step or two in front of the others. Frieda labelled him Boss for want of something better.  
  
Pre-emptively, she kicked off her heels, knowing she could run faster without them.   
  
Shelley's grip on her mother tightened, and for all his pubertal bravado, Peter hugged her side. No matter what their disposition, to frightened children, mother always seems the safest port of call.   
  
"Wife of Static," said Boss.  
  
She couldn't help it. Her mouth had a death wish all of its own. "I do have a name, moron."  
  
"Irrelevant."  
  
"Charming."  
  
The line of men rumbled. Something akin to enthusiasm crackled in the air; but it was darker, more potent than anything she'd ever felt before. It reminded Frieda of the lull before thunder, and she shifted her stance, ready to bolt.   
  
There was no doubt about it - these people meant to harm them. She didn't know why, exactly, but everything about them proposed hostility, and they'd already demonstrated a partiality for smashing things up.   
  
Shelley shivered. "Mommy..."  
  
"Children of Static," said Boss. He raised his hand, like some Roman emperor at a gladiatorial match.   
  
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Frieda warned, attempting - while they were stationary - to verbally bail them out of the situation. Or at least buy them time. Dakota did have more than two superheroes, after all, and even if Static and Rubber Band Man were otherwise engaged, there were several other Bang Babies who had sprung up on the side of good over the years. "If you know who my husband is then you know what he's capable of - and if anything happens to us, he's going to come after you and make what he did to Ebon look like a trip on the merry-go-round."  
  
"This is supposed to scare us?" She didn't have to see it. She could *feel* the creep's smile hanging in the air. "We are the elite. Your husband has already lost to us, and you do not have his powers."  
  
A lump of something cold coalesced in Frieda's stomach, and all at once she was talking to Ritchie again on her cell phone.  
  
"What do you *mean* you don't know, Ritchie? You're his partner - his best friend! You're supposed to keep track of him."  
  
"Yes, I'm his partner, Frieda, but I'm not his babysitter. We don't always patrol together. And when I say I don't know where he is it doesn't mean I haven't been looking."  
  
"And you've made sterling progress so far, I see."  
  
"Hey, don't blame me for this. I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. You think I'm not worried about him, too? I... Virgil's a big boy, Frieda. He's been doing this for a long time. He can handle himself. I'm sure he can."   
  
_But he can't. He didn't. Oh, Virgil..._  
  
The smile in the air tightened. "When we meet again he will not survive. His punishment for humiliation of the Kobra shall not be overlooked."  
  
The lump in Frieda's stomach eased for a nanosecond.   
  
He wasn't dead. He was still alive and pissing off the bad guys, just like always.   
  
A strange, diluted kind of euphoria filled her at the revelation that her wayward spouse may actually have a good explanation for his recent non-appearance. And - more importantly - he may be alive enough to tell it.   
  
Her mind performed a few quick calculations, arriving at a conclusion that reformed the lump in her stomach, but edged it with jagged glass.   
  
The Kobra. Faboo. Like they got anymore high-profile than that?  
  
And they'd decided to 'punish' Virgil by striking at the thing he valued most - his family.  
  
She felt sick to her stomach; and now, more than ever before, she hated the newspapers that had run the stories of Static's real identity. She hated the TV channels that had broadcast the news worldwide. She hated her best friend, Shelly Sandoval, godmother to her children and namesake of her daughter, for agreeing to front the exclusive. She hated the world for not disregarding it as some stupid crock of bull. And most of all, she hated criminals everywhere who thought it clever to get at enemies by targeting the innocents connected to them.   
  
Peter and Shelley were just kids with a famous father. What right had the Kobra, or anyone else to hold that against them?  
  
Hot anger flared behind her eyes, translating itself into what it usually did. "Static must have really kicked your tails for you to get so mad. What did he do, blow up your headquarters? Scupper your plans for world domination? Give you a wedgie?"   
  
While she spoke, she pried Shelley from around her neck and set her in front of Peter, sliding hands indiscernibly into her jacket pockets as she did so. She gestured them both behind her legs, then grasped the small items previously kept in the hovercar's glove compartment, running her fingers over their reassuringly hard casings.  
  
"If you make one move against us it's going to be all over the newspapers tomorrow. Front page, blaring headlines, three page spread - the works. There'll be a nice big investigation, and some cop will find evidence tying you thugs to our murders. Even if they can't get the big boys at the top of your organisation, they'll find you grunts. Then they'll come and arrest you, and you'll get a one-way trip to the electric chair. That's if my husband and his friends don't find you first. I hear tell that this new Batman has you pretty high on his 'to pummel' list, and Gear might have a trick or two he's just *dying* to try out on handy test subjects. So you see, it really isn't in your best interests to hassle us."   
  
"You will die," said Boss, completely unperturbed by her words. For all she knew, they ran guys like him off a production line. "You will die slowly and painfully. Then, after Static knows what his actions have wrought, he will also die. He will die in pain and sorrow and misery. Nobody debases the Kobra and lives."  
  
Boss darted forward with a grace incongruous to his size, hands reaching for where Peter peered around Frieda.   
  
And in doing so he crossed a boundary he hadn't even been aware of - a boundary that had been old long before reptiles gave way to mammals and apes learned to walk upright.   
  
Never threaten a child in front of its mother.   
  
Frieda visited the station's gym twice a week, but she wasn't exceptionally fit. Her throw stunk just as much as it had when she failed Phys. Ed. back in high school. All the same, she whipped up two of the Zap Caps taken from her pockets and threw one with all her might at his face.   
  
Boss obviously hadn't been expecting an attack like that from a weakling woman in a suit, with the result that he left an imprint in the opposite wall after detonation.   
  
"Run!" Frieda shoved at Peter and Shelley, giving them no opportunity to argue. "Hurry!"  
  
There was no nod from either of them, just acceptance and action. Peter grabbed his sister's hand and the two of them took off with all speed. No more than three steps away the bunny slippers were discarded, and Shelley ran on bare feet out of the alley and towards Sharon and Adam's house.   
  
Two of the men gave chase. Frieda threw another tiny Zap Cap, confusing them. They didn't see the minuscule thing arc through the air until it impacted. Then they latched onto the alley walls, confounded and blinded, pawing at their eyes.   
  
Boss lay prostrate on the other side of the alley. The last two masked men, shielding their faces with their arms, began pursuit of the fleeing children in lieu of their dazed brothers. They were fast - impossibly so. Much faster than humans had right to be, and for a second Frieda wondered whether they were meta-humans or spliced animal-men under that get-up.   
  
The penultimate Zap Cap was thrown as she moved, but had little impact on their progress. The last made contact with a flagpole jutting incongruously from the side of the building. It splintered; teetering on a few scant fragments. Then it fell, taking a few pieces of metal and brick with it.  
  
The men jumped, stumbling under the blitz of debris. One of them tripped, and over him fell the other. They ended up a tangled heap of limbs and muffled curses, and demonstrated that they were not quite the crack team of assassins they appeared. More likely, some remote part of her reflected, these were the escapees from Static's wrath who were looking to further themselves in a decimated organisation. Easy to work your way up if you come through in a crisis.  
  
Frieda jogged up, fully intending to scramble over and make good her escape - or, at the very least, to hold them up long enough for Peter and Shelley to get past security and be delivered into their Aunt and Uncle's capable hands.   
  
The foot collided squarely with her back. She went down hard, the weight of it still on her and speeding her fall so that she had no time to throw out her hands. The ground tasted oily, and she wiped at her mouth as she twisted around enough to see a featureless face wrapped into dark fabric.   
  
Boss.  
  
Today was a day for illusions, it seemed; dead husbands, aspirant assassins and thugs who only looked unconscious.   
  
It was funny how these things worked out. Or it was funny to her, at any rate. She'd always had an eccentric sense of humour, though. People used to comment on it at school, and then at the station. It wasn't that nobody else could laugh in a crisis, it was that she tended to get a little hysterical inside, clamp it down to do the job, and then giggle at inopportune moments for hours afterwards. An innocent water cooler had once sent her into paroxysms of mirth for a full fifteen minutes, during which time she almost turned blue from lack of oxygen. The entire office floor had ground to a halt to watch, and Shelley had been a heartbeat away from calling the paramedics in case her friend needed to be resuscitated.   
  
An entire office floor...  
  
It was what she was good at - getting and keeping attention. Frieda knew how to play on people, worm out a reaction like a good reporter, even if it did involve running like crazy for the van when they snapped.   
  
Even this freak was still a person under his mask. She was willing to bet they all were. The Kobra wasn't known for admitting robots into its ranks, and even if they were spliced they had still been human first.  
  
They wouldn't let her get up. Evidently, chasing after two scared kids didn't rate against making sure she didn't follow - which she supposed she should be grateful for, but it was difficult to form any kind of coherent musing when you were clutching your chest and wheezing against the burning pain of a broken rib.  
  
The third kick broke her arm. The fourth crunched her left foot into powder. After that she lost track, muttering around a swollen lip and trying to push herself up against the hail of blows.   
  
They could've ended it quickly. You didn't become part of an organisation like the Kobra unless you knew how to finish an enemy swiftly and cleanly. It took no more than a few seconds for her to realise that simple execution her was only part of the equation. They wanted Static to hurt before they came after him, and what better way to do it than to let him find her body broken almost beyond recognition? To let him know that she had not only died, but that she had been in tremendous pain beforehand?  
  
The thought made her want to fight back. If she was going to die that way, then at least Virgil would know she hadn't just given up and taken it. He would know what signs to look for - how to read the situation and discover what had happened. He'd had decades of it with other people, other crimes, giving statements and delivering evidence to CSI teams - long enough to learn the more distasteful tricks of the trade.   
  
Her suit was ruined, streaked with grease full of grit and pieces of coloured glass. That was going to cost at the dry-cleaners, an absurdly unoccupied fraction of her brain reminded the part engaged in just plain breathing.   
  
When Boss pushed her back down she stiffened, resisting, and her palm slid over what could only have been a discarded tin can lid. The reaction to pull away from the source of pain was instinctive, with the result that she fell flat on her face and bit right through her bloated lip.  
  
Once down, she reversed her tactics and kicked out with both legs. The damaged one connected, though there was no rewarding howl of pain from anyone other than herself. Instead, someone picked her up by her hair, which had come loose from its slapdash chignon. If she hadn't hurt quite so much she would've sprayed abuse at him.   
  
Maybe they weren't the greatest assassins in the world, but they were certainly familiar with the ways of pain. She ached and stung in a dozen different places, but the world was still quite clear to her eyes.   
  
She saw Boss, and impulsively reached out to rake her fingernails across his face. Whether it would've done any good against his mask was uncertain, but she never got the chance to find out because he caught her wrist in his free hand and managed to snap it without removing the other from her scalp.  
  
A man who could multitask. How nice.   
  
She forced her eyes open to count. Five of them. They were all here. And with no small, struggling - or worse, motionless - bodies, either.   
  
It took another three punches to her back and sides for the world to go hazy. Had she been standing of her own free will, her legs might have buckled. Strands of hair gave way, but there was enough in Boss's grip to maintain her vertical pose.   
  
Her odd sense of humour rose to the fore again. She'd always been complimented on how thick and luxurious her hair was. In Junior High, before she had it cut and layered at her cousin's salon, the kids had nicknamed her 'Rapunzel' because it nearly reached the backs of her knees.  
  
In her sophomore year she'd been a stagehand on the school play along with Virgil, Ritchie and a few others. They'd been doing an updated, student-written version of Rapunzel - which had ticked her off slightly, because she hadn't been asked to help with the scripting.   
  
To show them she was a useful commodity anyway, she'd taken it upon herself to make the wig by hand. Long hours spent threading tufts through a latex scalp - bought online from a special store in Gothem - resulted in even longer evenings at hers or Virgil's house, plonked in front of the TV with a rented movie or two to relieve the boredom. He and Ritchie, perennially joined at the hip, would sit five inches from the screen until she threw cushions at their heads. Then they'd move back to spend another half-hour edging forward, repeating the entire process over again.   
  
Virgil...  
  
She was certain he had a good excuse for going missing and getting mixed up with the Kobra - certain of it. It was just too bad she wouldn't get to hear it. Or yell at him for it.   
  
Someone pulled the fingers of her left hand apart and began systematically snapping them. She had a vague notion she was suppose to feel more pain than she did, but it was like a damp cloth had been spread across her senses. Her ears roared, drowning out the sound of cracking bone and tearing muscle.  
  
In memory's soft focus she saw things she hadn't seen in decades. Sat in her stroller, playing patty-cake with her father. First day of kindergarten, when boys and girls didn't play together because of cooties. Running after the blonde boy and his big-mouthed friend, threatening to kiss them and give them girl-germs for crayoning on her picture. Comforting a friend when he couldn't keep the tears in after the Dakota riots. Being handed the junior journalist of the year award in front of a full auditorium. First article in the High School newspaper. The Big Bang and the madness that followed. Jealously every time Daisy and Virgil went off together. Consequent surprise at his stuttered request for a date. Prom night, with her blue dress and corsage that didn't match. Virgil in a tux, looking thoroughly uncomfortable. Being interviewed for a job on the Daily Planet. Heartbreak when she didn't get it. Sitting gob-smacked on the Hawkins' couch after learning of Virgil's alter ego. An understated wedding, filled with love where the white lace and pennies didn't stretch. Being rushed to the emergency room, clutching her husband's hand with each contraction. Running pell-mell from Ebon, then swept away on a sizzling metal disc. Playing patty cake with her son in his stroller. Cuddling her daughter on her first day of kindergarten, knowing the cycle was repeating itself.   
  
Snapshots crowded into her brain. Odd instances - unremarkable, yet burned into her memory. PTA meetings. Monday morning conferences. The polished surface of her desk. Peter's chubby, baby cheek against hers. Stubbing her toe on the track field. Slapping the table attached to her high chair. Everything merged, blended, fuzzed into a wobbly montage of flitting image, scent and sound.   
  
There was no longer a here and now. Time and place were irrelevant. There was only this strange cylinder of reminiscence, a funnel she was being sucked into.  
  
One scene flashed in with perfect clarity, setting itself apart from the rest.   
  
She and Virgil on a quiet walk in a quiet place, before life got so very adult and complicated. They were twenty - that age when people talk about important things as if they were not important and unimportant things as if they were. Copper-coloured leaves parted for their feet; and on all sides severe, quadrangle college buildings rose up like a canyon they'd fallen to the bottom of.   
  
They passed the English department, where she took classes and argued with lecturers over Blake and Walpole. Far away, on the other side of campus sat the pudgy little blocks where Virgil made magic out of metal and coloured wires. He could've easily got a scholarship at a more prestigious college than Dakota, but he'd stayed because he felt his place was there. Static's place was there. She was there.   
  
However, Static didn't intrude into this quiet walk. Neither did the boxy buildings, with their portent of work left undone and papers unfinished. Instead, they talked of other things.   
  
They talked about a movie they'd been to see last week and the state of the college football team. They talked about who made the best spaghetti bolognaise, how much butter was needed for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich and whose turn it was to rent something from Blockbuster. They ghosted over current world events, the latest campus gossip, how far along Sharon's wedding plans were, and that new Shakespeare lecturer with an accent as southern as iced tea on a Shenandoah front porch.   
  
And when they reached the area known as the Sunken Garden - last remnant of a failed horticultural society - they talked about the days ahead, what the future might bring, and all the things that seemed so desperately important when you were young, in love, and your biggest concern was two-thousand words on Gothic fiction due for Friday.  
  
The flashback narrowed. Brown eyes with laughter in them - the kind described by melodramatic poetry as 'liquid' and 'emotive'.   
  
Melodramatic or not, she could very possibly drown in those eyes.  
  
Then she was falling; past the Virgil of yesteryear, through the Sunken Garden and its ceiling of burnished sky. Down, down, down into the dark - past it, through it, beyond it...  
  
... And into the not-quite-soft fold of green percale.   
  
She couldn't feel anything - not even the thrumming of her own temples. For a few long seconds she was little more than a nebulous cloud of awareness, not quite tethered to the physical world, and for a few slightly shorter seconds her scattered thoughts clawed back a shred of logic and surmised that this must mean she was dead.  
  
The concept of mortality and What Came Afterwards wasn't one she liked to ponder very often. It was far too depressing, given her everyday life, and usually she preferred to think of living for the moment and other uplifting philosophies. However, trying to escape such vain notions when you were approaching the end of the tunnel is rather difficult.   
  
Damn it if this tunnel didn't smell like antiseptic, though. And what was with all the beeping? Did the afterlife have a security checkpoint?  
  
Gradually, a drip-feed of sensation slowly let her know that her centre of balance had been replaced with a horizontal surface. Added to that, there was something up her nose and something else jabbing into the back of her hand - sensations that told her she still had a physical body and was quickly falling back into it. For a second she almost wished she could remain free of a cumbersome shell, with all its aches, pains and frailties, but the inevitable plonked her back into her own skin with no more courtesy than she was due.   
  
Once she had sufficient motor control, she tried to open her eyes. Only one of them was willing to play ball. The other stayed stubbornly puffy, forcing itself closed again. She gave out a vampire hiss against the thin sliver of light that pierced her eyeball.   
  
Wherever she'd ended up - Heaven or Hades - it sure looked a lot like Dakota General's ICU.   
  
"Mmmrf..."  
  
The sound of movement, and a shadow fell across her face. She forced her one amenable eye open and tried to focus on something other than bags of clear nutrient and a scarily clean white ceiling. Ceilings weren't meant to be that clean. It was an affront to nature, or something. They were supposed to have smudges and cobwebs in the hard-to-reach corners. Maybe even splots of paint or play-doh from when the children had started roughhousing at a mistimed moment.  
  
"Frieda?"  
  
_I know that voice._ She tried to turn her head, but she appeared to be wearing a neck brace. _Well, that's a new one. Could've sworn I wasn't wearing this before._  
  
"Shhh, don't try to move."   
  
Soft fingers brushed stray hair from her forehead. With a little strain, she peered up into the haggard face of her wayward husband.   
  
"Hey, pretty girl. Welcome back."  
  
Summoning supreme effort, Frieda shoved a few words through her swollen lips. "*You*... have *so* much 'splaining to do, mister."  
  
Virgil smiled. He wasn't wearing his mask, so it was indeed Virgil and not Static standing over her. For some reason, that made her feel a lot better than having a superhero at her bedside.   
  
"'At's my girl," he mumbled, stroking her brow. He was uncharacteristically solemn. "Thought I'd lost you for a minute, there."  
  
"S'funny. Thought I'd found you..."   
  
For a moment he looked confused, but the expression vanished when a woman in a nurse's uniform bustled into the room. Virgil turned; hand never leaving Frieda's forehead, and the two non-patients exchanged hurried sentences in which the words 'awake' and 'miracle' featured heavily.   
  
When the nurse was gone Frieda gurgled, "The kids..."  
  
"Safe at Sharon's place. Last I heard, Shelley was braiding her aunt's hair. I don't think Sharon's gonna be able to look at a Pretty Penny hair slide again so long as she lives."  
  
"...Peter?"  
  
"With Adam, mostly. He wanted to come down here, but we thought it best not to expose him to the varied-but-luscious sights and sounds of the ER."  
  
She wanted to nod but couldn't. "You?"  
  
Virgil sighed. "It's possibly the most convoluted, complex and farfetched story I've ever had to turn into an excuse for you."  
  
"I'd say try me, but right now all I want to do is kiss you for being alive, you idiotic moron." She blinked, suffused by sudden bliss, and attempted to raise the hand trailing plastic tubing. "This morphine?"  
  
Virgil nodded.  
  
"Well it's slaggin' lovely."  
  
He looked shocked, and pressed a melodramatic hand to his chest. He was wearing a hideous purple shirt that had obviously been borrowed from Adam, which meant their closets and the contents thereof had not survived the Kobra attack.   
  
"Did my grammatically correct spouse just utter the word 'slaggin'', or are my ears deceiving me?"  
  
"Slaggity, slaggity, slag, slag, slag." Frieda giggled; a hapless sound, just this side of hysteria. A gurgling sigh pulled her back before she could fall, and her head sank into the surprisingly soft pillows. For once in her life, she didn't mind reclining, since her neck felt stiff under the brace and one of her feet was curiously numb. A downward tick of the eyes revealed a white cast hoisted in some cabled hospital contraption she neither understood nor wanted to.  
  
Virgil spoke, telling her he'd followed her gaze. "The bones were pretty much slagged. Amazing what they can do with technology these days, though."  
  
Her other hand, the one not stabbed by an intravenous, was also swathed in white plaster and strung up like a fish on a hook. Her fingers were misplaced worms poking through the end, waiting for some sparrow to come gobble them up. Tentatively, she tried to wiggle them, but all she managed was a vague twitch and a sharp pain that tracked the length of her arm. She didn't try again.  
  
"I'm going cyborg?" It wasn't unheard of for cyberbiotic segments to be implanted into badly injured patients without their consent. What with new technologies being introduced to medicine every day, it was difficult for the general public to keep track of just what could be done and what couldn't without permission. Rumour had it that severe burns patients were sometimes being treated to snake-gene splicing so they could shed their ruined skin for a new one, but those who knew weren't saying anything. Never part of a story she'd run, Frieda only knew as much as anyone else did about it - i.e. not much.  
  
Virgil just chuckled. "'We can rebuild you, we have the technology'. No, you're still one hundred percent organic. Just a little bruised up, is all."  
  
"Well, that's okay. Bruises don't last forever." She gathered her wits and focussed as best she could - not easy when the morphine made the corners call her gaze. She sucked in a difficult breath and took the plunge while she still had wits to do so. She still felt quite tired, after all, and periodic naps were supposed to be common when brimming with happy juice. "How did I survive?"  
  
Virgil looked like he'd expected this question, if not quite so soon. He ran a hand as best he could through that rat's nest he called hair and sighed deeply. "Mostly Adam, a little bit of me. When the security personnel brought Shelley and Peter up to the house he got the salient points of their story and took off for the alley where you were. Quite truthfully, Frieda, if he hadn't been there then you... wouldn't. Be here now, that is."  
  
Frieda saw the look in his eyes and recognised it for what it was. Virgil and Adam had a good working relationship, with only a fraction of the competitiveness from their early careers, but every once in a while one of them unreasonably regretted that they weren't able to do what the other could, or had done. This was one of those times.  
  
"After the mind boggling part of story I'm going to tell you," Virgil went on, "I swing by the apartment and find it trashed. Having no clue where you or the kids are, I contact Ritchie, get nothing, and head out to Sharon's with all speed in the hopes that whatever Big Bad got into our place scared you into running for protection there. On the way I get a call from Ritch that Adam could use an assist - which I turn down, of course, being practically out of my mind wondering where the hell you guys are. He tells me that I *really* want to be in on this one, 'cause the person getting whaled on in some back alley by a bunch of steroid-infused cloak guys calling themselves the Kobra is my very own significant other. Mucho interest at this point. So I high tail it there, do my thing and then beat the ambulances getting you to Dakota General."  
  
"Do your 'thing'?"  
  
"I, uh, fried their butts as they were running away and wrapped them up in a drainpipe. Those that weren't already unconscious, that is. Adam hung around for the cops while I got you here."  
  
"My great, strapping hero."  
  
"Who, me?"  
  
"If I said Adam I'd very likely have an angry Sharon after my blood. And even though I'm going to have to thank him in some giant way for saving my life, I'd rather face the Jokers than your sister in a temper."  
  
"I hear you." Virgil smiled wanly, and for a second she thought he was going to peel off into one of his fake anti-Sharon litanies. However, instead, his face became suddenly serious again and he knelt by her bedside.   
  
"Last time you did that was when you proposed," she started to say, but he cut her off.  
  
"Frieda, no jokes for a second. Just hear me out, okay, 'cause I'm pretty convinced the moronic part of my brain has kicked in, so I may not be able to say this without getting too mushy in a minute. I've... as Static, I've faced freaky creepazoids, mutant terrorists, heroes gone bad, rampaging monsters, an alien or two, and criminals from here to there to right up the wazoo. I've seen some pretty grotesque stuff since I got into this superhero gig - some of it pretty damn unnatural to boot, and almost all of it life-threatening in some way, shape or form. But I could always face it because I asked for it. I've had chances to get out and I turned them down. I've nearly died more times then I like to think about, and have one too many battle scars than someone should have outside of an official war zone. But this time... this time I came this close to losing you," he held a thumb and forefinger barely an inch apart, "and you know what? That scared me more than all of the freaky stuff put together. Honestly. I was choking on my stomach the whole time I carried you in my arms to ER. You were so still, and there was so much... I'm told they considered sedating me 'cause of the manic pacing and pestering important medical-type people while you were in theatre. And... Frieda, I'm sorry. I know you say you understood what you were getting into when you married me, but I... I'm just so sorry this had to happen."  
  
Frieda sighed, winced, and focussed on him gravely. She raised her good hand and rested it on the crown of his head, rotating her thumb against his scalp the way she did when she woke first in the morning to find him next to her, where he hadn't been the night before, and she had to touch him just to reassure herself that he was real and safe and hers for one more day.   
  
"With regards to the worrying, welcome to my world," she said simply. "With regards to the apology, please don't, because I hate rehashing old discussions and that one's finished to me. And... thank you." Then she raised an eyebrow, looking to the daylight streaming through the window. The clock read just past five in the afternoon. "You've been here this whole time? As in, you missed work for me? Hmm, you really must care."  
  
"More than you probably know, oh morphine-filled one."  
  
"I wouldn't say that. I'd tell you to give me a kiss, but I have the disturbing notion that if you did, my lips would fall off." She giggled again, as warmth spread through her from the back of her hand. "Ooh, tingly. So, I take it this big, implausible explanation of yours involves you doing something to piss off the Kobra?"  
  
"Two of me, actually. Oh, and a couple of Batmen."  
  
"Excuse me? I thought I was the one on the happy drugs."  
  
He shook his head, but there was a smile on his lips. "It is a long, long story."  
  
"But you did piss them off, right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Which usually translates to you beating the bad guys, i.e. them. Preferably with much kicking of heads.."   
  
This time the smile had teeth to it. "Oh yeah."  
  
"Then I demand gory details. When I get my hands back I might be able to run a story on it, if I'm lucky. They allow laptops in hospitals, right? Anything involving Batman usually grabs the headlines, but to have a Static and Bat combo, with a side order of evil cult... But wait, hold the phone, you said Batmen. As in, the plural. What, we have more than one guy with pointy ears running around Gothem kicking lawbreaker heiney, now?"  
  
Virgil looked at the door. "Since you're not going anywhere soon, maybe it wouldn't hurt to go into it. I can even repeat myself if you drop off to sleep. Though I warn you, it is pretty far-fetched, even for me."  
  
"Sure, whatever. Throw me that bone." Then she jerked and swore vehemently, recoiling at the surge of pain that even the morphine couldn't completely dull. It returned her to full wakefulness more efficiently than anything else could have.  
  
Virgil stood up quickly, obviously ready to run for the nurse. "What? What is it?"  
  
Frieda grumped. "I don't have my mini-recorder with me. Damn it. Don't suppose you could stop being the concerned spouse for a second and scrounge me up one before you tell me the juice, could you?" She batted her good eye and hoped it wasn't too grotesque a sight. God, she wished she knew if she had bed-head. "Pretty please?"  
  
Virgil stared for a second, blinked, and then held a hand to his temple. "Oh yeah, you're back."  
  
=========  
  
FIN.  
  
========= 


End file.
